Every day that passes, we know much more about our universe. This week, the exact age of the Maisie galaxy, discovered in June 2022 by our beloved James Webb Space Telescope, has been determined. Despite the galaxy not being as ancient as anticipated, scientists have been able to confirm that it is one of the oldest recorded stellar systems.
“With 13.4 billion years behind it, the Maisie galaxy ranks as one of the oldest galaxies discovered by humans. Calculations place the formation of this galaxy ‘only’ 390 million years after the Big Bang, making it 70 million years younger than the oldest known stellar system, JADES-GS-z13-0.
Originally discovered last year by a team of astronomers led by astronomer Steven Finkelstein, who named it after his daughter upon making the discovery on her birthday, the galaxy’s birth was initially estimated to be 290 million years after the Big Bang. However, an analysis using more advanced equipment has revealed its true age.
‘What’s exciting about the Maisie galaxy is that it was one of the first distant galaxies identified by the James Webb, and of that set, it is the first one that has been spectroscopically confirmed,’ says Finkelstein.”
“The spectroscopic confirmation came courtesy of the Cosmic Evolution Early Release Science Survey (CEERS) and the Near Infrared Spectrograph (NIRSpec) of the James Webb, which ‘splits the light from an object into many different narrow frequencies to more accurately identify its chemical composition, heat production, intrinsic brightness, and relative motion.'”
Thanks to this advanced tool of the space telescope, the group of researchers from CEERS were able to confirm that the Maisie galaxy was 100 million years younger than initially estimated.
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